For movie lovers, there’s no bigger night than the Oscars, celebrating films from the past year. But as time goes on, the Academy Awards ceremony continues to see more scandals and shocking, puzzling moments.

This year is no exception, as all eyes are on Timothée Chalamet, a frontrunner for the Best Actor award for Marty Supreme, after he said “no one cares” about ballet and opera during a CNN & Variety Town Hall event. His comments have sparked backlash from several celebrities, including Andrea Bocelli, Nathan Lane, and ballerina Misty Copeland, among others.

If he wins on Sunday night, there will be a lot of attention on whether or not he addresses the responses to his comment on ballet and opera.

Looking back at history, here are some of the most shocking and controversial moments from the Oscars.

Karla Sofía Gascon habla antes del espectáculo de los Premios de la Academia del 97º en Hollywood, Los Ángeles, California, EE. UU., 2 de marzo de 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

(REUTERS / Reuters)

El auge y la caída de Emilia Pérez

Karla Sofía Gascón fue nominada al premio a la Mejor Actriz en 2025 por su papel en Emilia Pérez de Jacques Audiard. Si bien Gascón es la primera persona abiertamente transgénero nominada a un Oscar, se vio envuelta en controversia cuando tuiteos islamófobos y racistas de la estrella volvieron a la superficie.

CEO Bill Kramertold The Hollywood Reporter that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does not condone hate speech, but added that he hopes there is “an air of respect” for Gascón at the event.

The Oscar went to Mikey Madison for Sean Baker’s Anora, which also won Best Picture.

Pero Emilia Pérez también fue una de las inclusiones más controvertidas en la carrera por los premios de los Oscar, entre sus críticas se encuentra que Audiard afirmó no “estudiar mucho” sobre México, donde se desarrolla la película, lo que resultó en perpetuar un estereotipo negativo sobre el país. Las escenas musicales también fueron ampliamente criticadas, incluyendo una sobre la cirugía de afirmación de género, que se volvió viral por todas las razones equivocadas.

HOLLYWOOD, CA – 27 de marzo de 2022. Will Smith golpea a Chris Rock en el escenario durante el espectáculo en la 94ª entrega de los premios de la Academia en el Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood el domingo, 27 de marzo de 2022. (Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times vía Getty Images)

(Myung Chun vía Getty Images)

Will Smith golpea a Chris Rock

Years have gone by, but it’s hard to forget the moment when Will Smith got up on the Oscars stage and hit Chris Rock, after Rock made a GI Jane joke, referencing Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head. The joke came as Pinkett Smith had also been open about her struggle with alopecia.

“It was sickening, I physically felt ill, and I’m still a little traumatized by it,” 2022 Oscars co-host Wanda Sykes said on The Ellen Show following the event. “And for [the Academy] to let [Will Smith] stay in that room and enjoy the rest of the show, and accept his award, I was like, how gross is this.”

“You assault somebody, you get escorted out the building, and that’s it.”

The Academy did ban Smith from the Oscars and any other Academy events for 10 years.

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Oscars history of boycotts — #OscarsSoWhite, Marlon Brando & George C. Scott

Boycotts at the Oscars may have made headlines in recent years, but there is a long history of Hollywood stars boycotting the ceremony.

Back in 1973, Marlon Brando declined his Best Actor award for The Godfather and sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather in his place. As Roger Moore tries to hand Littlefeather the award, she refuses the statue.

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“He very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award and the reasons for this being…the treatment of American Indians today, by the film industry…and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee,” she said during the ceremony. “I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening and that we will, in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.”

Now this story gets particularly more complicated when, after she died of cancer at 75, the San Francisco Chronicle published a report that Littlefeather had been falsely claiming she was of Apache and Yaqui heritage.

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Actor George C. Scott famously declined his Oscar for Best Actor for his performance in the 1970 film Patton, after previously stating that he would not accept an Academy Award for his nominated roles in The Hustler (1961) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

He called the ceremony “a two-hour meat parade” and “a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.”

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Fast forward to 2015, April Reign started the viral hashtag #OscarsSoWhite when all the nominations in the acting categories went to white actors, the beginning of a movement to call out the Academy’s long history of racism.

Spike Lee, Lupita Nyong’o and Barack Obama were among the notable people calling for change in the Academy, with many stars urging celebrities to boycott the ceremony.

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Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tie

If you’re going into Sunday’s Oscars ceremony wondering whether a tie could happen in any category, it’s happened 6 times before.

But the most notable one was in 1969 in the Best Actress category, when Katharine Hepburn won for The Lion in Winter,and Barbra Streisand won for Funny Girl. Hepburn didn’t attend the ceremony, and Streisand accepted her award with the famous “Hello, gorgeous” line.

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Adrien Brody kisses Halle Berry

Adrien Brody shocked us in 2003 when he won the Best Actor award for The Pianist.

The film entered awards season amid scandal. It’s directed by Roman Polanski, who won the Best Director award that year, but couldn’t attend the event after fleeing the U.S. just before the sentencing date for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl in 1978.

But when Brody got up on stage, he grabbed Berry and kissed her. Berry has confirmed that the kiss was not planned, and what was going through her mind at the time was, “what the f—k is happening right now,” as she told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live.

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The Oscars streaker

In 1974, the Oscars audience got a shocking surprise when artist and gay rights activist Robert Opel rushed the stage naked.

“That was almost bound to happen,” David Niven, who was introducing Elizabeth Taylor at the awards show, said while on stage during the incident. “But isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings.”

The Opel incident was part of an ongoing performance art piece, and in addition to streaking at the Oscars, he also had his own costume for the character of Mr. Penis.

1989 Academy Awards show, Rob Lowe and Snow White singing and dancing during Cocoanut Grove opening production number. Disney sued for unauthorized use of character/ (Photo by Randy Leffingwell/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

(Randy Leffingwell via Getty Images)

Rob Lowe’s bizarre ‘Snow White’ performance

Opening numbers at the Oscars can generally be quite divisive, but Rob Lowe got the brunt of it in 1989, participating in an odd duet of “Proud Mary” with Eileen Bowman dressed as Snow White.

“Every February, you will see me on the list of Oscar embarrassments,” Lowe said in an interview on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM in 2019. “By the way, I want to say, these idiots couldn’t even figure out how to say the best picture two years ago, and I’m still the problem?”

“I’m a midwesterner, which means I am a people pleaser… The idea was every elderly Hollywood star would be wheeled out, legitimately wheeled because a lot of them couldn’t walk, and one of the greatest of all the old-time stars would be Snow White, who had the hit box office movie of 1937. But she would be played by a real person, and she would sing a lyric-changed version of Ike and Tina Turner’s ‘Rollin’ On The River’ in a duet with me. By the way, no one was high when they came up with this.”

A letter from 17 Hollywood stars, including Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews and Paul Newman, slammed the performance as “an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry.”

“It is neither fitting nor acceptable that the best work in motion pictures be acknowledged in such a demeaning fashion,” the letter read.

Angelina Jolie gets too close to her brother

At the crest of Y2K, Angelina Jolie made headlines following the 2000 Oscars, not just for her Best Supporting Actress win for Girl, Interrupted, but for pictures circulating of her kissing her brother, James Haven, on the lips.

“I’m so in love with my brother right now,” Jolie said in her acceptance speech. “He just held me and said he loved me, and I know he’s so happy for me, and thank you for that.”

Following the media frenzy, Jolie snapped back, saying reporters had completely blown the situation out of proportion.

“First, we’re the best of friends. And it wasn’t some odd open-mouthed kiss. It was disappointing that something so beautiful and pure could be turned into a circus,” she told People.

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James Franco, Anne Hathaway awkwardly lead awards show

The oddest Oscar host pairing has to be James Franco and Anne Hathaway in 2011.

Right from the start, Franco was mostly just staring blankly into the camera, while Hathaway had to overcompensate and giggle through the awkward event.

“It was like the world’s most uncomfortable blind date between the cool rocker-stoner kid and the adorable theatre-camp cheerleader,” Academy Awards writer David Wild told The Ringer.

In an interview with People, Hathaway revealed she initially turned down the opportunity, and it was Franco who convinced her to take it.

“He didn’t give me anything,” Hathaway said.

“God, I just remember the night before we’re about to go up there, and me turning to everyone and going, ‘Am I too much? This feels really big to me.’ And the producer just went, ‘No! Don’t do less. Do more if you need to.’ And I was like, ‘Oh OK, I guess it’s going great.’ And I didn’t realize what was happening about that whole thing.”

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Is it ‘Moonlight,’ is it ‘La La Land’?

One of the most memorable Oscar moments happened in 2017, when we barely figured out which film actually won Best Picture.

When everyone involved in the Damien Chazelle movie La La Land (starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone) went on stage to accept the award for Best Picture, weird looks began to pass between them. Eventually, someone in a headset came on stage, looked at two envelopes, and La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz revealed there was a mistake and that Moonlight actually won, holding up the card to reveal the true winner.

Then Warren Beatty, who presented the award with Faye Dunaway, got on the microphone and said he opened the envelope and it said “Emma Stone, La La Land.” That’s why I took such a long look at Dunaway before saying the name of the film.

No matter how many times we watch this clip, it’s still awkward.